Chinese second largest maker of network gear Huawei Technologies is about to beef up its patent porforlio ahead of 5G, says its Chief Executive Ken Hu during a keynote speech at "The Road to 5G" session on Mobile World Congress in Spain.
Huawei has touted its yearly research and development budget - equal to 10% of its revenue - as proportionally higher than many of its peers in industry. Hu told reporters in Barcelona this month Huawei will spend US$600 million on 5G wireless research and development from 2013 to 2018.
"5G will help us overcome some of the challenges which cannot be fully addressed by existing technologies, particularly in terms of the number of connections, network latency, and speed," he says.
Huawei's patent application numbers also became No.1, outpaced its rival ZTE Corp, which was the world's leading applicant in 2012.
